Adventures in the Canaries! (part 2)
Adventures on the Knars! (part 2)
Start here.
Puerto de la Cruz
While we were driving, we noticed that the nature and climate had changed a lot, if in the south the plants grew only where they were well watered, then there were just green groves everywhere, even where it was not necessary) After getting off the bus, we started a GPS search and were very glad that the point of our hotel was 400 meters from us, because the city is big. After our cozy Costa Adeje, the first day was really acclimatization and getting used to the big city. The terrain of the coast here is very rocky and the ocean shows its character in all its glory, and its color, well, just... I could not resist, I ran to swim. After walking on the black volcanic sand, I climbed into the stormy but warm ocean. If I somehow swam deep into the depths through a rocky shallow bottom, afraid to catch a stone in my arms, then the ocean did not really want to let go back, pulling me to the center. But the presence of a side breakwater gave confidence that it would not be dragged to the ends. While getting out, he shook his legs a little, but he was happy as an elephant. This is how the Atlantic Ocean should be! Then we had to go to the local bus station and plan our routes in the north, the relict forest, as potentially not the most interesting and difficult to get, was postponed towards the end. Although, in fact, if we knew what it was, we would not have prioritized visiting the volcano on this trip) The girl in the window from herself advised us to add the neighboring town of Orotava to our route, since we had a suitable window in the route. Great, 25 minutes drive to town.
It turned out to be a cozy mountain town with beautiful narrow streets, everywhere where you walk pleases the eye. All the beauty of the cozy streets was decorated with a background from the boundless ocean somewhere in the distance. It is worth noting that Lilliputians clearly live in this city, since the doorways in the houses were close to my height, or even lower. Moreover, these Lilliputians are clearly very greedy, since this is so far the only Spanish city where there were paid toilets, and they were not allowed to go to cafes almost everywhere if you didn’t buy anything from them.
As if the condition of a mandatory purchase will make you want a chocolate cake instead of a toilet. I also remember an expensive museum with free admission - you go in for free, but everything inside is paid. And so the town of norms, just right for a relaxing walk through the mountainous area, we even wandered in it looking for a way out among the gardens and beds. Back in Puerto de la Cruz, we ordered a large paella for dinner, so as not to miscalculate with the deliciousness of the food. Yes, and under the wine was just right. An interesting fact is that wine is called homemade, and it is uncorked from ordinary store bottles. Having mastered half of the portion of our boloud, the other half was packed for us to take with us to have breakfast tomorrow. Every evening we ate frozen yogurt. In Kyiv, the toad presses you to pay for it, but on a trip everything goes towards the trip, but you don’t feel sorry for the trip) At night, the ocean looked ominous, especially when we walked uphill over the cliff. Oh, what can I tell you, night walks in Tenerife are something unusual and definitely have their own charm.
The next day we have planned the first in Europe and the third in the world zoo Loro Parque. Moreover, his advertising was well, just everywhere - on buses, banners, trash cans and in all parts of the island.
At 09:00 in the morning, a free loro train picked us up from the decorative loro platform, and we rushed along the roads and tracks to the loro park. We drove for about 15 minutes. At the entrance we presented our twin ticket, bought back in Siam Park, and went to the first show.
The principle is the same as in Jungle Park - you pay for the entrance to the park and visit all the shows as many times as you want. The first show was fur seals. They are always good and beautiful cats, and our godfather said that she ate them, but then it turned out that it was not a dish from a cat, but from a seahorse. Some of the tricks that the cats showed, I have not yet seen in other performances. Of course, there were more than a hundred people here, and this was only the first show.
At the penguinarium
I was a little sleepy, so I drank decaffeinated coffee. Harsh of course, but the fact that it is not real is not written anywhere. Dachshunds, the seals are over, what do we have next? Birdies! Only not in the same format as in the jungle park, here everyone sat opposite the stage, on which the birds demonstrated their talents. It was really cool to put everything together. The parrot even went to put out the fire in a fire truck. The third show was dolphins. But the main guest of the program was one of the trainers, who had such a gorgeous snow-white smile that he was clearly paid extra for it. All the dolphin shows the thought never left my head, but how can you smile so widely?
I think a trainer could make a fortune in the dental hygiene advertising industry. The most important show of the loro park was the last killer whale show. There were already so many people here that it was scary that there would not be enough space in these giant stands. The arena itself was also impressive in size, because four killer whales should feel free there. Above the arena there is a large screen with a live broadcast of what is happening in the stands. They took different people into focus with the camera and wrote in a cloud what they think now. Some grandfather was especially trolled, who could not find his place in any way and did not notice that he was in the focus of the camera. Then they began to focus on two people, circle them in the heart and do not remove the focus until they kiss. It was really tearfully funny, especially when the cameras were pointed at the two guys. After such a warm-up, they began to broadcast a warning about what could happen to those who are sitting in the "Splash zone". No wonder they sold raincoats at the entrance for three euros. We were calm as we sat high enough, but then we realized that there are special stickers on the seats that fall into this zone, and ours is no exception. The video was both funny and dumb. Dasha, having analyzed the height, said: “No, well, it won’t fly. ” Five minutes later, during the show, we said the phrase “Flew! ” Wiping off dripping water. The last moment that I remember, a huge tail hits the water in our direction. Some guy during the tsunami decided to run for a raincoat for his wife. Just at full speed, he got under the wave, when he returned to his wife with a raincoat, it turned out that their sector was not covered by the wave and the wife was sitting dry, and he was all wet and with a raincoat in his hands. The show is not so much interesting as spectacular, because where else can you see how almost the whales in front of you show tricks. Meanwhile, people kept coming to the park and coming.
At the same time, it was believed that we were in the Canary Islands out of season. In addition to four types of shows, there is a huge zoo with exotic animals on the territory. Most of all we liked the pingivinarium, the enclosure with the gorilla, with white tigers, as well as aquariums with fish, jellyfish and, of course, the underwater tunnel.
We spent a total of 6 hours, the time flew by quickly. The rest of the day was devoted to geocaching, thereby discovering a beautiful park and gorgeous views. Moreover, this hunt was not simple, but night. In fact, it was not worth looking for treasures at night, which you will find in the daytime. For the sake of one treasure, we climbed into such dense thickets that even with the hint “Perpendicular to the bench at a distance of exactly 8.2 meters, we still had difficulty finding it. ” But not in vain, there was a treasure-traveler who had already been in Africa, Norway and Germany, having covered more than 8000 km in 2 years. We saw his route on the map. Now this traveler is waiting for a very exotic country almost on the opposite side of the globe. Moreover, we found it literally at the last moment, because then a heavy downpour covered us, but fortunately there was a cafe nearby. The next day, the main journey of this trip was waiting for us - the relict forest, although we did not know this then.
Relic Forest
Even though Dasha warned me that it might be cool there, I didn't take it seriously. A relic forest is a forest that has preserved its flora since the time of the dinosaurs, that is, when dinosaurs walked in this forest, these prehistoric, unique plants grew there. From Puerto de la Cruz it was necessary to go through the city of La Laguna with a transfer, and the time of all transfers is somehow dangerous at the butt. Transferring to another bus, we went to the mountain town of Cruz del carmen. There was a thermometer on the bus showing the temperature outside. The temperature dropped literally every five minutes. And we started with 24 degrees. When the thermometer showed 17 degrees, I already regretted that I had not taken warm clothes into the forest, but Dasha, fortunately, scored too much)
At the place where the bus unloaded us, there was a top of some mountain and 7 trails where you can walk. To understand where you better have a closed tourist information. According to the experience of some traveler, whose blog we read before the hike, we chose her route, almost 10 km long TH10 (we recommend the route). Ancient green forests swallowed us up, covering the sky with their branches. The forest was cold but beautiful. At one point, the path divided, and we decided to clarify with the guys where it was better, in response we received “It depends on where you left the car. ” Here, once again, they were glad that without a car, because they didn’t want to turn a 10-kilometer hike into a 20-kilometer return. Having learned that we were without a car, the guys sent us to go through Chimanada! Soon the forest ended and simply fantastic views of huge mountains covered with relic forest opened up to our eyes.
The views were almost as cool as in Peru, I even coincidentally wore a matching t-shirt for the hike. After a two-hour drive, we had a snack in Chimanada. They even brought me something tasty. True, the second time, the first time some kind of fish that I did not order. And the next guy ordered soup in general, and they brought him a huge dish of fried vegetables, explaining that soup is the name of the dish) Having rested, we went on. If before Chimanada there were stunning views, now they have become stunningly fantastic. There were also sometimes beautiful cliffs over the ocean. After Chimanada, we still walked for a couple more hours through this beauty.
Climbing a volcano compared to this forest is a drop in the ocean. Already when they started to descend, Dasha drew attention to some guys who, under a neighboring mountain, were firing with machine guns. One problem, from a distance it’s not particularly possible to understand whether airsoft guns are machine guns or the lads decided to settle the dispute. Fortunately, we were not seen by them. Having reached the end, it was possible to assess how long the route we went through the mountains, looking back. I really wanted to go again on a different route the next day, but my legs and strength told me: “This will be the last thing you do. ” The relic forest has left eternal memories among our travels around the world, this is definitely what is most beautiful in Tenerife. There, in fact, something else could be seen in the city, which we reached, but having met the departing bus, the legs themselves ran after it, and uphill. Good thing the driver stopped. Then there was a dream with a transplant and again a dream. And be sure to take an evening walk along the promenade. The dream was as strong as ever.
The last of the recommended that we have not yet visited from the recommended in Tenerife is the city of La Laguna. The town is of course normal, but against the backdrop of everything that can be seen on the island, it did not cause any special feelings. This day was rainy and it was really fun to change your walking route depending on the raids and the intensity of the rain, but we visited the real Kenar covered bazaar.
I was glad that due to the rain, our hotel gave us umbrellas for free, oh, what Spaniards are doing well, it's a pity that when they settled the islands, they cut the local population. The next day we only had time until 12:00 am before starting the return journey. Getting up early, we set off to Geocache treasures, getting to know the unexplored parts of the island.
The Canary Islands, as well as their inhabitants, were included in our top 5 best trips, during this ten-day trip we saw a lot of interesting, and most importantly, various sights. The population is so kind that even when I bought T-shirts in the store, the saleswoman already closed her eyes, spilling her thanks for the purchase. In November, the weather was very good, one day it rained, but they didn’t bother us much. The ocean in Tenerife is beautiful where you don’t buy much, and to be honest, there was no time to really swim in it, I was only twice in the water, Dasha - once. The bus network is very well developed, but you need to buy bono passes, as they get a discount of up to 25% on travel. In order to visit all the main parts of the island, we spent 125 euros for travel for two, taking into account the discount. The flight was certainly a little hard, but nevertheless it was worth it plus there were really beautiful views from the window. The only drawback is that the food is far from the most delicious in our experience, but although the portions are large, and the wine brightens it up. I didn’t want to part with the Canary Islands, it was very emotional there, but for us it was not the end of the trip, it’s not for nothing that we will have a transfer of 30 hours...
Trip Information
Date of travel: 11/13/2015 – 11/23/2015
Duration: 9 full days
Flight tickets: Wizzair, bought with a promotion on the day when Wizzair opened this direction
Flights: Kyiv-Budapest-Kyiv
Hotel: Booked through Airbnb,
Excursions: Everyone on the bus
Visas: Self-obtained
Trip difficulty: 4/10 (average)
Costs for two:
Accommodation: €25 per day
Restaurants: Average bill 24 euros
Twin ticket Siam Park + Loro Park: €118 summer rate (price for two twin tickets, i. e. for two people in two parks)
Jungle park: 54€
Bus travel: €125 including bono discounts
Boat from Masca to Los Gigantos: €20
Cable car to Mount Teide: EUR 58 round trip
Permit to climb Mount Teide: A month, free of charge, here
